Press Secretary’s Office

President Obama and Robert Gibbs watch coverage of the first lady and daughters
planting a garden on the south lawn in 2009 (White House - Pete Souza)

Office of the White House Press Secretary

Just down the corridor from the Oval Office and, in the opposite direction, around the corner from the Press Briefing Room, are the offices of the White House press secretary and his staff. Journalists in the White House press corps are allowed to roam only this far into the West Wing without explicit permission and do so for regular "gaggles" that are less formal and not televised as the briefings in the Press Briefing Room are. For that reason, the press secretary's office is one of the largest in the West Wing.

When the West Wing was expanded in 1934, this office was used by Franklin Roosevelt's top secretary Louis Howe and sat empty for a time after his death but was eventually taken over by FDR's press secretary, Steve Early. Early's office had previously been the one now used by the vice-president because it adjoined the old Press Room at the time (now the National Security Adviser's Office).